Hollywood romances Silicon Valley

Commentary: Sorkin’s Jobs movie should do well, but TV shows?

Film crew and Steve Jobs's sister, Patty Jobs, in front of the Los Altos family home on Crist Drive

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Earlier this week, a Hollywood movie crew took over a block of Crist Drive, one of the more middle-class-looking blocks in the high-net-worth city of Los Altos, Calif.

Neighbors gathered to watch, a little girl set up a lemonade stand and part of the block was closed off. Five Star Feature Films had arrived to recreate Silicon Valley circa 1976, when two guys, both named Steve, hoped to change the world with computers they were making in a garage.

Apparently, Hollywood has decided that nerds coding or building computers makes good drama.

The movie being filmed is called “jOBS,” the first of two biopics on the life of Apple Inc.
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co-founder Steve Jobs. The movie pitches probably started flying just after “The Social Network,” the film about the origins of Facebook Inc.
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was nominated for eight Oscars. It raked in $225 million in worldwide box office grosses.

Other projects now in the making include another movie about Jobs, but based on the best-selling 2011 biography “Steve Jobs,” by Walter Isaacson, with a script written by Aaron Sorkin, who won an Oscar for his script of “The Social Network.” Read about Sorkin at D10 conference.

In addition, in the last six months, both Bravo, the home of the Real Housewives franchise, and CBS
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have announced tech-themed television shows. The Bravo program — the working title is “Silicon Valley” — is a reality show, while the CBS sitcom is called “Friend Me” about two best friends who move from Indiana to Los Angeles. The show will not air until the middle of the next season.

Ann Finnie

Film crew from Five Star Feature Films descended on Los Altos earlier this week to film scenes for a biopic about Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, starring Ashton Kutcher as the late Apple CEO.

A spokeswoman for NBC Universal
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insists that the Bravo show is not a “Real Housewives of Silicon Valley.” Not much is being divulged about the show, which has started filming. Bravo is working with Mark Zuckerberg’s sister Randi Zuckerberg.

For now, before these various glamorized depictions of life in one of the geekiest areas of the country air, locals are bemused by the attention.

“It was really fun, I’ve talked to people in the neighborhood I’ve never met before,” said Laura Cline, who was watching the filming of “jOBS” this week. Cline lives about a block away from the house where Jobs spent some of his formative years, and where he and Steve Wozniak assembled the first Apple computers in the family garage, with the help of anyone who was around, including his sister, Patty Jobs.

With a target date of late fall 2012, the “jOBS” movie will be the first out of the gate.

And while the “jOBS” movie seems to be aiming for verisimilitude, by filming at the actual house where the Jobs family lived in Los Altos and the 1970s cars on the street, some are dismayed that actor Ashton Kutcher will be playing the role of Steve Jobs. Kutcher, who was an early celebrity to embrace Twitter, took Charlie Sheen’s place in the TV show, “Two and a Half Men” and is mostly known for roles in romantic comedies.

But TMZ (Silicon Valley now merits coverage by TMZ!) interviewed Apple co-founder Wozniak, who said Kutcher will “put a lot” into the role. “The fear that many might have is that Ashton was selected because he’s ‘hot’ right now,” The Woz told TMZ. “But I feel that his selection was done in the most professional manner. And I’m glad that he’s on board. I think he’ll put a lot into it and that he cares about this particular subject.” Read Wozniak interview with TMZ.

Indeed, the story of Jobs, a prickly, idiosyncratic dreamer who dropped out of college and founded what would become the most valuable company in America, is full of drama, personalities and one of most impressive come-back stories in business. After being ousted from Apple in a boardroom showdown, Jobs went on to struggle in the formation of his next company NeXT Computer, but came back to Apple via its acquisition. He eventually became CEO and led a turnaround of the near-bankrupt Apple, leading and inspiring his engineers to develop some of the most influential consumer electronics products of our time: the iPod, iPhone and the iPad.

The second Jobs movie in development, based on the Isaacson book, is more widely anticipated, but the actors who will be portraying the major characters, including Jobs, have not yet been selected.

The planned TV shows could be more problematic, especially the unrealistic-looking “reality show.” The preview for “Silicon Valley” on Bravo’s website gives the impression the show is going to be about fast cars, money and good-looking young men and women, where the newly rich entrepreneurial geeks are branded as rock stars. See Bravo preview.

Of course, the actual world of people working in cubicles and open offices in bland research parks, where engineers brainstorm while writing complex algorithms on white boards, doesn’t make for great TV.

“Silicon Valley is high school,” says one woman in the preview, with an accent that sounds more like a San Fernando Valley girl. “But it’s only the smart kids and everyone has a lot of money.”

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